Marketing, advertising & media intelligence

Earlier this week we pointed out a billboard for the new True Blood
series on Prime. And the folks at DraftFCB and Phantom have sent us
even more billboard fodder confirming the adult-orientated humour of the
campaign. Sally Willis, Prime’s account director at DraftFCB, says the
aim was to shake any teenage preconceptions people held about the show,
differentiating it instead as a “raunchy, intense and gritty raw drama”.
And as these latest examples from the campaign show, there’s more
raunchy humour than you could stab a stake at.

“For people who haven’t seen True Blood it could be easy to dismiss it as just another Twilight or Vampire Diaries for teenagers, and we believe that’s what many of them have been doing for four seasons,” she says.

The
intention, Willis adds, was to avoid going down the obvious route of
stakes and blood because those elements aren’t unique to the show and
doing so would have only reinforced the stereotypes held by those in the
target market who don’t watch the show.

The campaign has however
meshed some traditional vampire folklore elements, like the potent power
of garlic, with traditional adult products. Sure, the smell of garlic
is ordinarily a bit of a passion killer, but if you plan on living the
city high life this weekend, keep your nose out and eyes open for garlic
flavoured condoms.

Of course the use of condoms in promotional
efforts is nothing new. Hell Pizza created quite the furore when it
placed 70,000 branded condoms in people’s letterboxes to promote its
Lust brand of pizza in 2006. That particular gimmick saw a complaint
against Hell being upheld, but with the True Blood condoms only
being placed strategically in bars on Friday and Saturday night, it’s
hard to see this smelly effort being controversial.

Elsewhere, there’s also this titillating billboard example…

And, as you stumble home in the wee hours with your garlic condom in
hand, these stakes might prove handy to hold on to should you lose
balance.

“Everything links back to the same insight about what makes True Blood different than other vampire shows: that it’s vampires for grown ups,” says Willis.

If you’re still not convinced of the campaign’s raunchy nature, this special build billboard ought to clinch it for you.

As well as the billboards and condoms, the campaign is also utilising the mediums of radio, online banners and print.

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